difficulties of introducing game seemed at first insurmountable. Mr.
Frank Buckland sent out quantities of salmon ova packed in ice, of
which hardly a single specimen survived the long voyage. Then people
told me that the New Zealand rivers were impossible to stock, owing to
a bad habit they had of constantly changing their beds without warning.
It is true that I saw that happen at those very white cliffs I have
just spoken of, where, after an unusually violent hot north-west gale
which melted the snows in the mountains, the river running beneath
those cliffs changed its course entirely during one night, cutting
another wide and deep channel for itself over very good grazing ground,
and leaving the owner of that particular spot with a vast extent of
shingle-covered river-bed in exchange, on which, as he pathetically
said, “a grasshopper could not find enough green meat.”
One can easily understand that respectable stay-at-home English fish
would not be able to shift their quarters at such short notice, but yet
I am now assured that a good basket of trout can be landed from almost
any New Zealand stream. They must have become very “mobile”! I wonder
if any of these same fish are the descendants of what I always regarded
as _my_ trout!
This was the way of it. Not long before we left New Zealand, one of our
squatter neighbours, who was anxious to stock a fine stream running
through his property, offered to give a home and a chance to some of
the newly-imported trout ova. I happened to meet him on one of my rare
visits to Christchurch, and inquired as to the progress of his trout
plans. I suppose that put the idea into his head, for he first asked
when we were returning to our station, and then earnestly entreated to
be allowed to drive me back in a sort of buggy or gig he possessed. I
greatly preferred riding, and told him so, but he seemed most anxious
for my company, and finally said he would speak to F. about it. I felt
quite willing to abide by _his_ decision, which I flattered myself
would be that I must certainly ride back with him. But to my dismay F.
said, “I think you had better drive with ——.” So there was no help for
it, and at the appointed early hour Mr. —— drove up, I was packed into
the buggy, and then the whole villainous scheme revealed itself! I was
wanted to carry a small pail full of trout ova, carefully, so that it
should not be jolted or spill. My whole attention and my every thought
were to be devoted to that sole object. I must not move or talk; I must
think of nothing but that pail. Mr. —— assured me later that his mind
would be entirely fixed on avoiding every stone or even inequality on
the road, so that the precious freight might not be jeopardised. And
I had seventy-five miles before me! If we came to a really rough bit
of road, I had to hold that pail out, on the principle of a swinging
cot at sea. Fortunately, there was a halt in the middle of the day,
but only for the benefit of the ova; however, my aching arms got just
a little rest. To make my sense of hardship more acute, F. rode near
us most of the way, and constantly added his entreaties to me to “be
very careful.” Later, I arrived at feeling a certain sense of pride
in having conveyed those ova so carefully that they all survived the
journey, but at the time I well remember my suppressed indignation and
burning sense of injury at having been entrapped as a trout-carrier.
But that only lasted so long as did the fatigue of my cramped position.
There has always been very good sea-fishing almost everywhere on the
coast, but we lived too far off to enjoy it. When, however, we went
to Christchurch it was always a great treat to have at every meal the
whitebait the Maoris sold in pretty little baskets of woven flax-leaves.
I see in the latest accounts that our own familiar “Selwyn” is quite a
favourite trout stream, but in the more distant big lakes, where the
fish attain quite a large size, the water is so clear that a rod is
useless, and netting is the only chance.
Some means must have been found of keeping down the “weeka,” tamest and
most impudent of apteryx. Very like a stout hen pheasant itself, only
without the tail feathers, it used to be the sworn foe of pheasants
in my day. It ate their eggs or killed the young birds. Many and
doleful were the tales told of the wholesale massacre of the pioneer
pheasant broods by the weekas, who seemed numerous as the sands of the
sea-shore. Dogs hunted them, men shot them, but in both cases they
were as elusive as the Boers, gliding from tussock to tussock, and
when forced into the open, running almost faster than the eye could
follow. To all my “bush” picnics the weekas invited themselves and
cleared up every crumb. It would have needed a pack of terriers to keep
them off, and although “Nettle” did his best he made no impression on
the marauders. They were not good to eat, but the shepherds extracted
an oil from the fat, which they declared made boots and leggings
waterproof. Still, weekas had it very much their own way at that
date. I see that hares and also Californian quail and plover flourish
nowadays, and I know the wild-duck were always plentiful and delicious
eating.
There was a talk of importing deer even thirty-five years ago, but
the idea did not find favour in the eyes of the run-holders. The
fences were only three or four wires high, and would of course be
no protection to the sheep, whose feed would be at the mercy of the
new-comer. It was known that two hinds and a stag had been turned out
in some well-grassed and forested low ranges in the North Island
as early as 1862, but one did not hear anything of them as either a
danger or a pleasure. They were the only survivors of a batch sent from
Windsor Forest by the late Prince Consort. The conditions must have
been ideally favourable, for they have now spread all over the place,
and afford excellent sport. Red deer seem to do well in our island
(the Middle), though I do not fancy they have come at all near the
part I knew. A few moose have been turned out on the West Coast of the
same Island, and there is even a talk of importing wapiti and cariboo.
But any one who wishes to know all about New Zealand—fur, fin, and
feathers—cannot do better than study, as I have done with the greatest
pleasure and profit, a delightful booklet by Mr. R. A. Loughman, of
the Lands and Survey Department in Wellington, which no doubt can be
procured at the Agent General for New Zealand’s Office. It makes one
wish to set off directly for that favoured though distant shore, and
Mr. Loughman asserts that numbers of sportsmen arrive there every year.
I heard a great deal of modern New Zealand when the Imperial
Representative Corps came back from their wonderful tour round
Australia and New Zealand three years ago. It was most interesting and
delightful to listen to the accounts of the progress everywhere; but as
I had been so very much longer away from New Zealand, the marvellous
changes there took more hold of my imagination, and I was delighted to
be told by all that it was still the most English place they visited.
There was much to occupy the public mind at home just then, and I have
often felt that we rather missed the value and significance of that
tour, especially as it was somewhat overshadowed and crowded out by
the rapture and magnificence of the welcome extended to their Royal
Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York almost directly
afterwards.
We were still in the midst of the war in South Africa, and then, just
after the Imperial Contingent left Sydney, to which it first went to
take part in the ceremonies marking the Inauguration of the Australian
Commonwealth, the Empire had to mourn the loss of its beloved Queen,
and nowhere was the grief more personal and profound than on those
distant shores. As the Commandant[6] told me, although the sad news
spoiled in a way the gaiety and _éclat_ of the greeting provided for
the troops, still it was far more impressive to see the genuine grief
and regret which the width of the world could not weaken. Memorial
services everywhere took the place of balls, and the “Soldiers of the
Queen” shared, with the splendid Colonial forces who were just then
springing to arms at the Empire’s call, in honouring her dear memory.
But by the time Invercargill, the most southern point of New Zealand,
had been reached, the first dark days of sorrow had passed, and the
people could better give free scope to their hospitable instincts,
and they greeted the Contingent with the heartiest welcome. The last
time British troops had touched New Zealand shores it was to fight the
Maoris, who now stood first and foremost in the cheering crowd, and
delivered addresses of welcome with the best.
The straight run down from the extreme south of Middle Island brought
them in due time, through those great Canterbury Plains where
harvesting was in full swing, down to Christchurch, and so on to
Lyttelton. But there was always time, apparently, for delightful little
picturesque episodes, such as stopping the train to let the detachment
of Seaforth Highlanders march, with pipes playing, to visit one of the
most prominent Scotch settlers, a man who had given his life’s work
to the beautiful new land. Fancy what a dramatic moment! To hear the
war-pipes skirl, and the old tunes played, all in one’s own honour and
in recognition of splendid service!
Then the thousand troops were taken on by sea to Wellington and shown
everything in the length and breadth of all the fair land; up to the
wonderful hot springs at Rotarua, down to the deer-stocked islands off
Auckland. Everywhere, not only did they receive a rapturous welcome
from the cheering crowds, but there were many historic and picturesque
moments in which the Maoris formed the central figures. I should like
to have seen the old Maori chieftain, after the “haka” or native dance,
fling his tasselled spear at the Commandant’s feet, saying, “For four
hundred years this taiaha has been handed down from father to son, from
son to grandson. But you and I alike are sons of our King, who rules
in the place of the Queen we have lost. Take it, and let it descend to
your children’s children.”
Thrilling also must have been the sight of the veterans of former
wars, now peaceful citizens, ending their days in comfort in these
distant lands, yet, like the war-horse of Bible story, pricking up
their ears and joining their new comrades. At all the reviews there
the veteran sailors and soldiers were, marshalled in the old form and
given prominent places; they themselves, with their medal-covered
breasts, being objects of honour to the gorgeous visitors. And quite as
thrilling must have been the ranks of cadets who lined the streets here
and there. My own heart has often gone out to these chubby boy-soldiers
when I have seen them—first at Adelaide in 1883, later in Western
Australia, where the youthful corps bore my name, and was known as my
“Own”—so it was with a peculiar interest that I read part of a speech
of the Commandant’s when he was leaving Brisbane, but it applies
equally well to the cadet corps of all the large New Zealand towns.
“What pleased me most in the march through your streets to-day, more
than even the enthusiastic greetings of the Queenslanders, was nearly a
mile of boys lining the road by the railway station. Hundreds of sturdy
youngsters, every one of them devouring our men with his eyes and
doing his best to look like a soldier himself. I thought as I looked
at their bright, keen young faces, ‘_there_ are our future Australian
contingents.’”
At Auckland there was one newly-raised detachment which had not yet
got its uniform, but turned out in white shirts with black arm-bands
and Panama hats. These sinewy, workmanlike “bushmen” had ridden in
from the country district on their own horses—as workmanlike as
themselves—not to take part in the big parade which every one was
talking about, and which would be remembered for years, but in order
to lend the Contingent their horses. Such stories—stories which I know
to be true—show me that after all the lapse of years New Zealand still
remains in heart the Old New Zealand of my day.
But, speaking of medals, I was much amused at hearing that the youthful
volunteers turned out sometimes quite covered with medals, extending
as far back as the first Cape war and going on to the Crimea and the
Mutiny. On its being remarked that they looked very young to have taken
part in such distant campaigns, they admitted that the medals had
belonged to their grandfathers and fathers, but that they conceived
themselves entitled—as did many others who were not even volunteers—to
wear them, and could see nothing at all laughable in doing so. It
seemed to me a very wise concession on the part of the Colonial
authorities to permit this, as a recognition of the natural pride of
the sons of such men in their ancestors having fought for the Empire in
bygone days, for they evidently regarded the medals as a link binding
them to the dear old Mother-land. However, the present generation will
proudly wear medals of their own winning, even if they do so side by
side with those gained by their forefathers. Yes, those thousand picked
men of that fine Imperial Contingent will have been so many Peace
missionaries bringing back news of the loyalty as well as of the wealth
and beauty of that fair England beyond the sea.
Not less emphatically will these tidings be endorsed by the welcome
extended to their King’s son and his gracious young wife when they too
landed on those smiling shores a few months later. The message their
Royal Highnesses brought was to the same effect, and received in the
same spirit of love and gratitude. At all events it will not be our
fault if our kinsmen beyond the sea, especially in the Islands of New
Zealand, do not understand how we valued the splendid help they gave
the Empire in its hour of need, and how grateful we are for it. I was
reading a little while ago some of the evidence taken before the War
Commission last year, and saw that one of the Generals was asked if he
had, at any time, any of the many New Zealand Contingents under his
command. “I am sorry to say I had not,” was the reply, and I felt just
as personally proud of the answer as though I were a New Zealander
myself, and all for the sake of those dear distant days and the good
friends who helped to make them so happy.
V
NATAL MEMORIES
As I sit, sad and alone in my empty home, dreading the cries of the
newspaper-boys in the streets, my thoughts often fly back to the “Fair
Natal” I knew long ago. More than twenty-eight years have passed since
I last saw it. Then, as now, it was early summer-time. The wide,
well-watered stretches of veldt were brilliantly green and covered with
blossom, chiefly lilies and cinerarias; the spruits were running like
Scotch burns, and the dreadful red dust of the winter months no longer
obscured everything. I have often, between April and November, not
known what was within an approaching bank of solid red cloud, until the
shouts of the unseen little “Voor-looper” warned me that a huge waggon
and its span of perhaps twenty or thirty oxen had to be avoided.
But after November, dust gives place to mud on the roads—mud of a
singularly tenacious quality, formed from the fertile red clay soil.
I don’t believe it rains anywhere so hard as it does in Natal, and
during the summer months it is never safe to part for a single hour
from the very best waterproof cloak which you can procure, or from a
substantial umbrella. Round Maritzburg a thunderstorm raged nearly
every summer afternoon, coming up about three o’clock. But when, by
any chance, that thunderstorm passed us by, we regretted it bitterly,
for the oppressive, suffocating heat was then ever so much worse. Even
the poor fowls used to go about with their beaks open and their wings
held well away from their sides, literally gasping for breath. One was
prepared for thunderstorms, even on the largest scale, when they came
up with the usual accompaniments of massed clouds, rumbling or crashing
thunder, and were followed by a deluge of rain; but I could not get
used to what I have never seen anywhere else, and which could only be
described as a “bolt from the blue.”
A very few days after my arrival at Maritzburg at the end of 1875, I
was standing one afternoon in the shade of my little house on a hill,
anxiously watching the picturesque arrival of an ox-waggon laden with
my boxes. It was in the very early summer, and the exigencies of
settling in left me no time to worry about the thunderstorms, of which,
of course, I had often heard. A more serene and brilliant afternoon
could not be imagined, and it was not even hot—at all events, out of
the sun. My two small boys, as usual, trotted after me like dogs,
and clamoured to assist at the arrival of the waggon; so I lifted the
little one up in my arms and stood there, with an elder boy clinging
to my skirts. Suddenly, out of the blue unclouded sky, out of the
blaze of golden sunshine, came a flash and a crash which seemed as
if it must be the crack of doom. No words at my command can give any
idea of the intolerable blinding glare of the light which seemed to
wrap us round, or of the rending sound, as if the universe were being
torn asunder. I suppose I flung myself on the ground, because I was
crouching there, holding the little boys beneath me with some sort of
protective instinct, when in a second or two of time it had all passed,
for I heard only a slight and distant rumble. I do not believe the sun
had ceased shining for an instant, though its light had seemed to be
extinguished by that blaze of fire. Never can I forget my amazement,
an amazement which even preceded my deep thankfulness at finding we
were absolutely unhurt, the fearless little boys only inquiring, “What
was that, Mummy?” There had been no time for their rosy cheeks even to
pale. I wonder what colour _I_ was. I looked at the little stone house
with astonishment to find it still there, for I had expected to see
nothing but a heap of ruins. Nay, it seemed miraculous that the hills
all round should still be standing.
I only saw one more flash equally bad during my two summers in Natal,
and that was whilst a thunderstorm was raging, accompanied by terrific
hail. Of course, I was then in a house and trying to distract my
thoughts from the weather, which I knew must be annihilating my lovely
garden, by dispensing afternoon tea. I am certain _that_ flash came
down upon the tea-tray, for when I lifted up my head (I defy any one
not to cower before a stream of electricity which seems poured upon you
out of a jug), I felt the same surprise at seeing my cups and saucers
unshattered. I am sure they had jumped about, for I heard them, but
they had recovered their equanimity by the time I had. Almost every
day one saw in the newspapers an account of some death by lightning,
and I know of one only too true story, in which our Kaffir washerman
was the victim. He had left our house one fine Monday morning with a
huge bag of clothes on his back, which he intended to wash in the river
at the foot of the hill, when he observed one of these thunderstorms
coming up unusually early, and so took shelter in the verandah of a
small cottage by the roadside. After the worst of the storm had passed
he was preparing to step outside, when a violent flash and a deafening
thunderclap passed over the little house. The lightning must have
been attracted by a nail carelessly sticking up in its shingled roof.
The poor Kaffir chanced to be standing exactly beneath this nail and
was struck down dead at once. I was told that he was in the act of
speaking, promising some one that he would return the same way that
very afternoon.
The streets of Maritzburg used, in my day, to be mended or hardened
with a sort of ironstone which abounds in the district, and in one of
these daily thunderstorms it was not uncommon to see the electricity
rising up as it were from the ground to meet the descending fluid.
Of course, the rivers soon become impassable, and I have a vivid
recollection of four guests, who had ridden out rather earlier than
usual one afternoon to have tea with me, being kept in our tiny house
all night. More than one attempt was made before dark to find and use
the little wooden bridge over the stream, which could hardly be called
a river, but its whereabouts could not even be perceived, and the
horses steadily refused to go out of their depth. So there was nothing
for it except to return, drenched to the skin, and bivouac under our
very small roof for the night.
And yet one is glad of these same rains after the long dry winter, when
all vegetation seems to disappear off the baked earth and the cattle
become so thin that it is a wonder the gaunt skeletons of the poor
trek-oxen can support the weight of their enormous spreading horns.
The changes of temperature in winter were certainly very trying. The
day began fresh and cold and bracing, but the brilliant sunshine soon
changed that into what might be called a very hot English summer’s
day. About four o’clock, when the sun sloped towards the western
hills, it began to grow cold again, and no wrap or greatcoat seemed
too warm to put on then. By night one was only too glad of as big a
fire on the open hearth as could be provided, for fuel was scarce and
very expensive in those days. Doubtless, the railway has improved all
those conditions; but Natal, as far as I saw it, is not a well-wooded
country, except on the Native Reserves, and the only forest—“bush,” as
they call it in Australia—which I saw, cost me a fifty-mile ride to get
to it!
Our poor Kaffir servants used to get violent and prostrating colds in
winter, in spite of each being supplied with an old greatcoat which
had once belonged to a soldier. This the master provides; but if the
man himself can raise an aged and dilapidated tunic besides, he is
supremely happy. Anything so grotesque as this attire cannot well be
imagined, for the red garment (it was almost unrecognisable as ever
having been a tunic by that time) is worn with perfectly bare legs, a
feather or two stuck jauntily on the head or with a crownless hat, and
the true dandy adds a cartridge-case passed through a wide hole in the
lobe of his ear and filled with snuff! Nor will any Kaffir stir out
of doors without a long stick, on account of the snakes: but only the
police used to be allowed to carry the knobkerry, which is a sort of
South African shillelagh and a very formidable weapon.
It always seemed strange to me that a climate which was, on the whole,
so healthy for human beings should not be favourable to animal life.
Dogs do not thrive there at all, and soon become infested with ticks.
One heard constantly of the native cattle being decimated by strange
and weird diseases, and horses, especially imported horses, certainly
require the greatest care. They must never be turned out whilst the dew
is on the grass, unless with a sort of muzzling nosebag on, and the
snakes are a perpetual danger to them, though the bite is not always
fatal, for there are many varieties of snakes which are not venomous.
Still, a native horse is always on the look-out for snakes and dreads
them exceedingly. One night I was cantering down the main street of
Maritzburg on a quiet old pony on my way to the Legislative Council,
where I wanted to hear a very interesting debate on the native question
(which was the burning one of that day), and my pony suddenly leaped
off the ground like an antelope and then shied right across the road.
This panic arose from his having stepped on a thin strip of zinc cut
from a packing-case which must have been opened, as usual, outside
the store or large shop which we were passing. As soon as the pony
put his foot on one end of the long curled-up shaving, it must have
risen up and struck him sharply, waking unpleasant memories of former
encounters with snakes.
Railways were but a dream of the near future in my day. Indeed,
the first sod of the first railway—that between Durban and
Pietermaritzburg—was only turned on January 1, 1876, amid great
enthusiasm. A mail-cart made a tri-weekly trip between the two
towns—fifty-two miles apart—and that was horsed, but on anything like a
journey either oxen or mules were used.